Arrow recruiting Harley Quinn for the Suicide Squad?

After this week’s episode of Arrow, a promo trailer features The Suicide Squad episode. One image from the sizzle reel in particular has the comic book community buzzing. A pale skinned, incarcerated blonde, with disheveled pigtails could be an Easter egg, but Cassidy Alexa is rumoured to be playing Harley Quinn by GreenArrowTV’s twitter. Nothing has been confirmed, but Ms. Alexa doesn’t seem to be denying it on her Twitter, and in fact is participating and revelling in the fandemonium. We only have two more weeks before the episode makes it to air so we’ll with our own eyes if the rumours have any truth.

Harley’s origin story is probably the most fascinating part of the character. Originally created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm for Batman: The Animated Series, the character became so popular that she was later adapted into the comic book universe. She was treated with her own comic on December 18, 2013 as part of The New 52 relaunch. It’s her inclusion into The Suicide Squad that we’re most interested about. She kindles a relationship with Deadshot and gets a larger story arc in the title. So it’ll be interesting to see if the writers incorporate it into the episode. Although the intricacies of her backstory vary, Dr. Harleen Quinzel has always been positioned as a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum. Assigned to assess and treat mental illness, she is completely unprepared for the Joker’s charm. And becomes captivated by him and so begins to fall madly in love.

Her reputation has grown since then, being featured in The WB’s failed television series Birds of Prey. Before Batman Begins rebooted the franchise, a fifth Batman film titled “Triumphant” would have included Harley and Scarecrow as the film’s villains. Her career hasn’t been all failures,though. Rocksteady Studios brought back the cast of Batman: The Animated Series back with Kevin Conroy as The Dark Knight, Mark Hamill as the Clown Prince of Crime, and last but certainly not least, Arleen Sorkin reprised her role as Harley Quinn. The character will return in Rockstar’s highly anticipated Batman: Arkham Knight video game.

Arrow has been borrowing heavily from Batman’s character roster, and Nightwing has been rumoured to make an appearance on the show. I’m wondering if that has to do with the special announcement regarding episode 19. Either way Fox’s Gotham might want to get the lead out before they end up with multiple versions of similar characters.

Before Arrow returns on March 19 with “Suicide Squad”, get caught up with the squad. Do you think it’s just an Easter egg or will Harley Quinn make her debut as part of the squad? What do you think the special announcement will be? Is Cassidy Alexa a better choice than Katee Sackhoff? Which show will do better, Arrow or Gotham?

The writer of this piece was: Laurence Almalvez Laurence has previously written over at Whatculture.com.Laurence tweets from @IL1511